Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Thor, the Goddess of Thunder Part 3: Getting Hammered

Without the hammer, Thor is just a lady in a funny hat and cape.About the time I started this project, I ordered up a couple of Mjolnir kits from Branfuhr Studios. You can see their current offerings here: www.etsy.com/shop/BranfuhrStudiosThe two kits arrived at about the same time as my fabric swatches:The castings were nice and clean. Free of surface flaws and with only a tiny bit of cleanup work to do on the sprues and seams. I ended up getting a bit carried away:Here's the parts of the heads glued together with the handles dry-fitted into place:Once I'd sanded the filler smooth, everything was primed and the metal parts were painted with a gunmetal metallic paint:The handle was painted in a tan enamel:Once that had dried thoroughly, I added a thick coat of darker brown acrylic paint, wrapped the whole thing in plastic cling wrap while the paint was wet, then peeled off the plastic wrap to reveal decent faux leather effect:After that had dried, the next step was to mask off the "leather" parts so I could paint the metal bits:The masking was a bit on the rough side, so there was a bit of leakage around the edges:Still, it was good enough to continue assembly:After a quick blackwash, the dark metallic parts were drybrushed in order to bring the details to life. Then I added the leather strap to the pommel and it was good to go:"But wait," says you, "I thought you said there were two of them."Good catch, dear reader. Stay tuned to find out what happens to that one.